Wednesday, September 12, 2012

On yes, on the way to the beach :-) for the afternoon activities. Of course the problem with coming such a long way to the convention by myself with out anyone else was that I had no one in the car to talk to about the the mornings activities. Which although annoying is something unfortunately I've gotten used to ( much to the bemusement of those in Nottingham stake. Don't know what I'm talking about you're obviously not a long term reader... so go read, you have some catching up to do :-)

Anyway, we had to collect lunch from Van's on a road at the top of the long path down to the beach. Now I wasn't sure what to expect but once again the planning of poole stake came through as they served up what was one of the best convention lunches ever as not only did you get to mix and match you got actual full length baguettes.

So lunch was a opportunity to make some new friends but knowing we were going to the beach I had in rare burst of forward planning had bought a secret weapon.

And what was the secret weapon? Why a blanket. Yes, a blanket. We seems simple but you'd be surprised at how useful it is going to beach when nobody else has taken one.

Now despite the dodgy weather of the morning, it actually started to improve to a extent that we started to get are glimpses of that dodgy round yellow thing in the sky that history tells us used to appear in the English skies from time to time. Now that it turned into a remarkably sunny day mind you, it was more what we referred to as goldilocks weather, just nice enough for fun and games but not so good it would have drawn 100s of people down to the beach. In fact in essence the mid singles had the beach to ourselves.

Well asides from one chalet where a girl had hung a banner declaring it was her mega birthday party, which did leave us feeling a little sorry for her because even though more then a dozen people had turned up in kind of looked puny next to over a 100 mormons.

So after Lunch, it was time for games, and unsurprising it was a Olympic theme, but none of the games were anything like you saw in London this summer.

Don't believe me? Well there was one game where you had to dig a channel down to the sea and flood it with water to get ping pong ball to float down there, a giant game of noughts and crosses where we were playing the role of the noughts and crosses ( it got even more interesting when people could throw people out of squares they wanted). Mind you there was a slight interruption caused by flying child whose brother had helpfully decided she needed some help down from the sea wall the quick way whether she wanted it or not.

One of the most entertaining games was one that was certainly designed to get people up close and personal. Basically you had to run in pairs, one boy, one girl carrying a inflatable beach ball between you. Sound easy? Well not quite as you weren't allowed to use your hands and basically by the time we had got to the course the sand was so churned up to about knee height even ursan bolt would have trouble getting to jogging speed let alone running.

Mind you as a ice breaker it worked remarkably well even if by the end my parter and I were both exhausted and were laying on the beach, gasping for breath. We had found that the best way to carry the ball between it was pressed between upper chest and neck etc, so when one of my partner's ( who I shall call cheery) came over asking if she was all right the conversation went like this

Friend: Are you all right?
Cheery: Yes, this is saxon
Me: Hi, ( waving one hand in hello in a less then macho manner)
Cheery: We just met 10 minutes ago and we've already necked three times
Friend: WHAT???
Me: Sorry, what?
Cheery: Oh yes and we had a fun time ( she collapsed into giggles)
Friend: He looks a bit tired
Me: Just a bit
Cheery: Oh they all say that
Me: All of them?
Cheery: Only the really lucky ones

At which point she collapsed into hysterics, I promptly did as well and her friend looked on baffled at the two people lying on the sand laughing their heads off.

Of course this little exchange meant that poole is the first convention that I can say I necked with someone :-) But that was nothing with what happened later.

After the games had ended a lot of people decided to go swimming, some fully clothed rather then in swim suits. Fraggle didn't but after one game involving water he was going round with what can be best described as the Mr Darcy look.

Although there was what I can best describe as a heart stopping moment when the official photographer actually waded out to sea with all of his camera gear to film the fun and games and he went out to greater then chest height, All it would have taken was one mis step and several hundreds pounds of gear would be gone.

But all's well that ends well and it all survived. Even if he got thoroughly wet in the process.

With the afternoon drawing to a close it was time to move onto the local chapel for a BBQ and for a rather unexpected bizarre left turn to the weekends events.